#perfect example of how i'm ocd and also disorganized

[gay-otlc]

Oneat Cperson Disorder

Obviously everyone with OCD is super neat. They probably have great handwriting and a perfectly organized room, and they’re qUiRkY because they don’t like asymmetrical things, all that shit. That’s what OCD stands for! Oneat Cperson Disorder!

Wait... OCD isn’t Neat Person Disorder?

Then what is it?

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. That’s the real acronym. It’s not Neat Person Disorder, it’s not a synonym for organized. It’s a shitty disorder characterized by obsessions and compulsions. A major symptom is intrusive thoughts.

This is what OCD actually is.

(Warning: Unneccessarily long. You have been warned.)

Intrusive thoughts

Almost everyone gets intrusive thoughts. That’s not an OCD specific thing. 

The way my therapist explained it was that the brain is like an email inbox, and thoughts are like emails. Some thoughts are marked as important, such as things like I need a drink of water. This is important to survivial and should be prioritized. Some thoughts just go in the general inbox, like That person over there is tall. It might be relevant to whatever’s going on at the moment, but is generally not that important. Some thoughts are spam, like I should hurt someone I care about. It’s not born out of any desire, it’s just random, and it’s completely unimportant.

A non-OCD person would mark the spam emails as spam. An OCD person would mark them as important.

And the type of spam emails that gets marked as important goes with the subtype of OCD. So, someone with harm OCD (me, it’s me, hi) could get the thought Overdose on these painkillers. Someone with contamination OCD could get the thought I touched this surface and now my hand is covered in germs.

Conclusion: Intrusive thoughts would be fine if my fucking spam filter worked. Stupid brain. 

Obsessions

After marking the intrusive thought as important, the brain will consider it to be... well... important. It isn’t, but hey, the brain doesn’t know that. It just knows that it was marked as important, so it should definitely think about this email.

And think about the email.

And think about the email.

And be literally unable to stop thinking about the email.

And become completely and utterly obsessed with the email until it matters more than a lot of the actually important thoughts.

Thanks a lot, brain. 

This is the obsession!

Since the brain only marked an intrusive thought as important because it was distressing, thinking about the intrusive thought will obviously cause more distress. OCD is an anxiety disorder, and the obsessions make you... take a wild guess... anxious!

An obsession will spiral until it creates a worst case scenario, usually taking place in a “what if” form.

So after I get the thought about overdosing, the next thing I think will be Oh fuckity fuck fuck fuck fuck, what if I overdose on these painkillers? I don’t want to, but I’m worried I’ll lose control and impulsively do it. This is hilarious, because I am an extremely not-impulsive person, but the OCD brain thinks in absolutes.

It wants solid, 100% confirmation that I will not commit suicide. And no matter how unlikely it seems that I will, having 100% certainty that I won’t is impossible. And my OCD brain apparently doesn’t understand probability and thinks that P(not overdosing) =/= 100% means P(overdosing) is extremely likely.

This might also be accompanied by fun other distrubing thoughts that explore this worst case scenario in more detail, such as my family finding my dead body, my friends being told I’m dead, people attending my funeral, etc.

A person who thought I touched this contaminated surface might go on to think Oh no, what if I now have this disease and get sick and die? That might be accompanied by going to the hospital, having surgeries and shit, also the funeral, etc.

The “what if” question is very distressing, And because it’s an obsession, you can’t stop thinking about it.

Conclusion: My brain should be able to stop thinking about things. Stupid brain.

Compulsions.

That obsession from before was fuckin’ scary, right? It’s all worst case scenario shit. We don’t want that happening. 

So, what do we do?

Prevent it from happening! Seems logical, right?

Except. Except this is absolutely, 100% the wrong thing to do. It perpetuates the idea that intrusive thoughts are Big Scary ™ and creates a vicious cycle until preventing the worst case scenario from happening completely consumes our lives. 

Compulsion is any sort of preventative measure.

When I have thoughts like overdose on these painkillers, there are a lot of things I really shouldn’t do except always do. I could list reasons to live (The problem with this is that I don’t want to die, and treating it like I do adds on to the idea that this is a genuine risk. People who are suicidal for real absolutely should think about reasons to live.) I could google “signs of suicidal people” until I’m confident that I don’t fit enough of those signs. I could completely avoid painkillers at all whatsoever until I’m in too much pain to do schoolwork I really need to do and then upon trying to take a painkiller I have a panic attack I mean haha what that definitely wouldn’t ever happen-

If someone has the thought I touched this contaminated surface and is now worried about getting sick and dying, what could they do? They could wash their hands, which is a big one associated with OCD. They could check symptoms of whatever disease they’re worried about until they’re sure they don’t have it. If a fever is something they’re worried about, they could check their temperature and then check it again because they don’t believe the first non-feverish number I mean haha I’ve never done this one either really what is it with these examples? So random, definitely not based in real life...

Ahem.

All of these measures are taken to prevent something that there isn’t a risk of, are make me more scared of something I don’t actually have to be scared of, and make me more reliant on these habits to the point where it interferes with my functioning; for example, if I’m scared of painkillers now, I’ll be in more pain and that will make it harder to do things. 

Conclusion: Just because compulsions give me immediate relief from anxiety, doesn’t mean they aren’t bad in the long run, and doing them is also bad. Stupid brain.

Ending Statements And Stuff:

So, can people with OCD be neat? Well, I’m convinced neat people are a myth, but I guess they can be. But can people with OCD also be disorganized? Fuck yeah, I’m here, aren’t I?

OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It is not Oneat Cperson Disorder, and please do not treat it as such. That can be harmful to disorganized people with OCD like me, who think “I can’t possibly be OCD! My room is a mess!” and then just... not get help for so long. 

It’s also just... like... wrong? It’s factually incorrect to say OCD is a synonym for neat and that alone should be a good enough reason for you to not say it. 

Don’t say things like “I’m so OCD!” because you don’t like it when something is crooked or any thoughts I have about harming you will be completely intentional.

Also, I think we can conclude that Shai’s brain is fucking stupid.